My thoughts on Pokemon: Black and White versions
(I promise you guys, I will post an entry on here that doesn't have something to do with Pokemon sometime in the near future. Seriously.)
Alright, first off, even though I love the series, let me just say that I think Pokemon should end like a British sitcom. Better to end when everyone still loves it than when it's been drawn out to ridiculous lengths and has jumped the shark numerous times. Or, to use another analogy, before it goes the way of The Land Before Time and it spawns so many sequels that it earns it untold amounts of ridicule.
So when they announced Pokemon Black and White, my mind immediately goes "are you fucking serious?" After all, that's the same thing my brain said when they announced Ruby and Sapphire, and the Pokemon anime stretched past its fourth season. That in itself explains why I took a hiatus from it completely from about 2002-2003 until last year.
Then I see things on fandom_secret criticizing all the "1st and 2nd gen elitists that believe that everything after Johto is shit". Unfortunately, I'm one of those people. I only like a few Pokemon and human characters from much later generations. I only got back into the fandom last year after I heard there were going to be remakes of Gold and Silver. Now that that's out there, I invite everyone in the audience to throw their eggs and tomatoes now so they can get that off their chest.
Of course, as someone who's wondering just how much further this franchise can possibly go, I'm keeping a wary eye on Pokemon Black and White. Most of what I see so far, and yes, through admittedly biased eyes, is... strange. The region's bad guys ("Team Plasma") look like some strange version of the Knights Templar, one of the Pokemon from the Isshu region looks like an axolotl in a gothic lolita costume and because it's an entirely new region far away from all the other four, they've revamped nearly EVERYTHING, including the appearance of the Joys and Jennies (the Joys look like older versions of Platinum's Mira).
So why am I still giving it a chance? The same reason I've given Diamond, Pearl and Platinum a chance.
The human characters.
I told myself after all the CoroCoro scans began to surface "well, there's a good chance that this region might have a cute rival, or some hot gym leaders or elites". Facing those characters as the story progresses is one of my favorite parts of playing the games. Here and there I'd check Serebii for updates, and for a long time it was just the critters. Oh, they've confirmed these Pokemon, they confirmed the legendaries, etc. It took a while until we saw any human characters beyond the boy and the girl you can play as (and by the way, I love BOTH of their designs. Both the boy and the girl are way cute!). The waiting paid off, because some of these people in this region are either awesome or cute. Or both. Also, there's a lot of things about these characters that the series was long overdue for.
1.) YES FINALLY A FEMALE POKEMON PROFESSOR. And she's really pretty. ;; She reminds me of a teacher more than a professor, though. (Maybe it's her hair and her skirt.)
2.) One of your character's childhood friends is an adorable little bookish boy with glasses. How freaking cute is -that-. The other one, Belle, ehhh... I dunno. She looks a little too moe for me. Same goes for Makomo (the professor's assistant), although she looks like a funny character.
3.) Your rival is seriously fucking amazing. <3 My first impression is that he's badass, but also kind of eccentric (especially if he's got this grandiose plan in his head to find some way to "separate" people and Pokemon and actually plans to make this happen somehow). This makes me happy because I was especially displeased with the rivals from the third and fourth gens. Sorry, but I miss the hot badasses!
4.) A riddle for you. What do the first of eight gym leaders of the Johto, Sinnoh and Isshu regions have in common? They're all cute guys.
Case in point.
HE HAS A KITTYMOUTH FOR FUCK'S SAKE ;A; The only thing that eludes me is ... why is he a waiter? He works two jobs? Well, Roark is a miner AND a gym leader, I guess that makes sense... not like he's the first guy to have just his leadership as his one occupation.
And of course, there are a few characters that trigger the needle on the WTF-scale.
First off, some of you already know that there's some controversy surrounding the Isshu region's second gym leader, Aloe. To put this as lightly as I can without traipsing into politically incorrect territory, she looks for all the world like the stereotypical "black mammy". (Oh lawdy.) There's lots of speculating whether her design might be altered for the US version (for example, how Jynx's face went from black to purple to avoid accusations that it looked like it was in "blackface"), and lots of complaints about her design being "racist" and "culturally insensitive". I, for one, think she looks kickass even if she COULD pass for Aunt Jemima with a huge green 'fro. So that's my two cents on the matter.
Then there's one of the anime-exclusive characters that will be making their debut soon. Serebii.net revealed that one of the characters in the upcoming new season of the anime dealing with this new generation is a kid named Shooti, who travels around the region, taking pictures of Pokemon he's never seen before.
... Um. Don't we already know someone like that?
So why not have him and Ash cross paths again, just like they said they hoped they would back in Freeze Frame? No, it's an entirely new region, they have to have entirely-new EVERYTHING. Everything and everyone has to be new. We already HAVE a fucking photographer, AND he proclaims himself to be the "world's #1 Pokemon photo master", so who's this little derpy blonde Paul-knockoff?
Pff. Whatever.
Anyway, that's all I have for tonight, folks. Yeah, it's tl;dr but I encourage my fellow Pokemaniacs to tell me what they think as well. Maybe it'll help me reach a decision on whether or not to get Black or White.
Alright, first off, even though I love the series, let me just say that I think Pokemon should end like a British sitcom. Better to end when everyone still loves it than when it's been drawn out to ridiculous lengths and has jumped the shark numerous times. Or, to use another analogy, before it goes the way of The Land Before Time and it spawns so many sequels that it earns it untold amounts of ridicule.
So when they announced Pokemon Black and White, my mind immediately goes "are you fucking serious?" After all, that's the same thing my brain said when they announced Ruby and Sapphire, and the Pokemon anime stretched past its fourth season. That in itself explains why I took a hiatus from it completely from about 2002-2003 until last year.
Then I see things on fandom_secret criticizing all the "1st and 2nd gen elitists that believe that everything after Johto is shit". Unfortunately, I'm one of those people. I only like a few Pokemon and human characters from much later generations. I only got back into the fandom last year after I heard there were going to be remakes of Gold and Silver. Now that that's out there, I invite everyone in the audience to throw their eggs and tomatoes now so they can get that off their chest.
Of course, as someone who's wondering just how much further this franchise can possibly go, I'm keeping a wary eye on Pokemon Black and White. Most of what I see so far, and yes, through admittedly biased eyes, is... strange. The region's bad guys ("Team Plasma") look like some strange version of the Knights Templar, one of the Pokemon from the Isshu region looks like an axolotl in a gothic lolita costume and because it's an entirely new region far away from all the other four, they've revamped nearly EVERYTHING, including the appearance of the Joys and Jennies (the Joys look like older versions of Platinum's Mira).
So why am I still giving it a chance? The same reason I've given Diamond, Pearl and Platinum a chance.
The human characters.
I told myself after all the CoroCoro scans began to surface "well, there's a good chance that this region might have a cute rival, or some hot gym leaders or elites". Facing those characters as the story progresses is one of my favorite parts of playing the games. Here and there I'd check Serebii for updates, and for a long time it was just the critters. Oh, they've confirmed these Pokemon, they confirmed the legendaries, etc. It took a while until we saw any human characters beyond the boy and the girl you can play as (and by the way, I love BOTH of their designs. Both the boy and the girl are way cute!). The waiting paid off, because some of these people in this region are either awesome or cute. Or both. Also, there's a lot of things about these characters that the series was long overdue for.
1.) YES FINALLY A FEMALE POKEMON PROFESSOR. And she's really pretty. ;; She reminds me of a teacher more than a professor, though. (Maybe it's her hair and her skirt.)
2.) One of your character's childhood friends is an adorable little bookish boy with glasses. How freaking cute is -that-. The other one, Belle, ehhh... I dunno. She looks a little too moe for me. Same goes for Makomo (the professor's assistant), although she looks like a funny character.
3.) Your rival is seriously fucking amazing. <3 My first impression is that he's badass, but also kind of eccentric (especially if he's got this grandiose plan in his head to find some way to "separate" people and Pokemon and actually plans to make this happen somehow). This makes me happy because I was especially displeased with the rivals from the third and fourth gens. Sorry, but I miss the hot badasses!
4.) A riddle for you. What do the first of eight gym leaders of the Johto, Sinnoh and Isshu regions have in common? They're all cute guys.
Case in point.
HE HAS A KITTYMOUTH FOR FUCK'S SAKE ;A; The only thing that eludes me is ... why is he a waiter? He works two jobs? Well, Roark is a miner AND a gym leader, I guess that makes sense... not like he's the first guy to have just his leadership as his one occupation.
And of course, there are a few characters that trigger the needle on the WTF-scale.
First off, some of you already know that there's some controversy surrounding the Isshu region's second gym leader, Aloe. To put this as lightly as I can without traipsing into politically incorrect territory, she looks for all the world like the stereotypical "black mammy". (Oh lawdy.) There's lots of speculating whether her design might be altered for the US version (for example, how Jynx's face went from black to purple to avoid accusations that it looked like it was in "blackface"), and lots of complaints about her design being "racist" and "culturally insensitive". I, for one, think she looks kickass even if she COULD pass for Aunt Jemima with a huge green 'fro. So that's my two cents on the matter.
Then there's one of the anime-exclusive characters that will be making their debut soon. Serebii.net revealed that one of the characters in the upcoming new season of the anime dealing with this new generation is a kid named Shooti, who travels around the region, taking pictures of Pokemon he's never seen before.
... Um. Don't we already know someone like that?
So why not have him and Ash cross paths again, just like they said they hoped they would back in Freeze Frame? No, it's an entirely new region, they have to have entirely-new EVERYTHING. Everything and everyone has to be new. We already HAVE a fucking photographer, AND he proclaims himself to be the "world's #1 Pokemon photo master", so who's this little derpy blonde Paul-knockoff?
Pff. Whatever.
Anyway, that's all I have for tonight, folks. Yeah, it's tl;dr but I encourage my fellow Pokemaniacs to tell me what they think as well. Maybe it'll help me reach a decision on whether or not to get Black or White.